Some have made the claim that Shakespeare was pro-feminist and did all he could to illuminate the wrong done to women of his time by creating some overwhelmingly misogynistic characters. This was his way of showing men the errors of their ways and shaming them into showing women more respect. This is an interesting hypothesis for a number of reasons. First of all, there are no signs that it worked, if Shakespeare did indeed intend to reform men. Could the Bard, supposing that he was trying to shame men into changing, influence men in this manner? Can we blame him if he failed? Secondly, and by far more interesting to me, is that, in some cases, feminists seem to be more interested in martyring the Bard than in promoting feminist agendas What proof do we have that Shakespeare was really that enlightened?
I was really quite entertained while reading the intro to The Taming of the Shrew. It was quite humorous to watch a person back flips to show what a righteous dude Mr. Bill really was. Anne Barton seems to be firmly entrenched in the "proto feminist Bard" camp. The introduction to this play was among the best I have read for this class and I don't mean to seem to be "slamming" Anne Barton, but her justifications for Petruchio and Shakespeare were pretty funny, in my opinion.
Maybe I am crazy, but I don't see how starving your new wife and refusing her sleep is enlightened behavior in any way, shape, or form. Barton tells us that, in Shakespeare's time, "shrewish" wives could become the victims of "physical violence, the more ingenious and excruciating the better." She further tells us that, in comparison to the men of that day, "Petruchio . . . is almost a model of intelligence and humanity" and that "what Petruchio wants, and ends up with, is a Katherina of unbroken spirit and gaiety who has suffered only minor physical discomfort . . ." (138). This is a very interesting take on the situation I read about. To me, Katherina's spirit was completely broken at the end of the play. I was anxious to see how Barton would, in addition to this proof of comparative enlightenment on Petruchio's part, find a way to claim that Shakespeare was also showing the men the error of their ways.
Torres, María De Los Angeles. The Lost Apple: Operation Pedro Pan, Cuban Children in the
Volo, Dorothy Denneen, and James M. Volo. Daily Life in Civil War America. Westport, Conn.:
Douglas R (2013). ‘Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War’. Published by Yale University Press (3 Sep 2013)
"Women have a much better time than men in this world; there are far more things forbidden to them." -Oscar Wilde. This quote embodies the fight over gender roles and the views of women in society. Taming of the Shrew deals with Kate and Bianca, two sisters who are at the time to he married off. However, suitors who seek Bianca as a wife have to wait for her sister to be married first. Kate is seen as a shrew because she is strong willed and unlike most women of the time. In his 1603 play The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare enforces traditional gender roles and demonstrates how little say women had in society. He accomplishes this through the strong personality of Kate, Baptista 's attitude towards his daughters as transactions, and
Info Learning Base. (2008, July 25). Disenfranchisement of Felons. Retrieved from Info Learning Base: By the Numbers: http://www.2facts.com/icof_story.aspx?PIN=in061102
Atwood creates many ideas in which allude to the thought that an apocalypse was to occur in the future of the novel Oryx and Crake. The presence of separation between a perfect and corrupt society presents many dangerous ideas that lead to the assumption of the ending of human life. In the novel, two different societies are being represented, one being the Pleeblands and the other being the Compound. The Pleeblands have been badly looked upon because p...
ADHD is a disorder that has been on the rise for several years now. The disorder is one that can cause many impairments to a child’s attention span, making it difficult to concentrate and to keep on task, especially on schoolwork. (Graham, 2007) The statistics have been growing ...
One of the biggest influences of the founders of Lincoln Electric is from James Lincoln, who created a board of advisors from the pool of employees to advise him (Sharplin, 1989). The board met every two weeks when it was first started, and it still meets today, nearly two hundred years after the company began. This board of advisors is made up of active employees in the company, and they are free to raise suggestions, criticism, or any topics of interest that the employees want the company to address. This level of honesty and openness is a rare quality, and this ability for employees to directly speak with their supervisors and discuss new ideas is probably one of the reasons why employees are so pleased.
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
Trait theory views criminality as a product of abnormal biological or psychological traits. It is based on a mix between biological factors and environmental factors. Certain traits alone cannot determine criminality. We are born with certain traits and these traits along with certain environmental factors can cause criminality (Siegel, 2013). According to (Siegel, 2013), the study of sociobiology sparked interest in biological or genetic makeup as an explanation for crime and delinquency. The thought is that biological or genetic makeup controls human behavior, and if this is true, then it should also be responsible for determining whether a person chooses crime or conventional behavior. This theory is referred to as trait theory (Siegel, 2013). According to Siegel (2013), due to the fact that offenders are different, one cannot pinpoint causality to crime to just a single biological or psychological attribute. Trait theorist looks at personal traits like intelligence, personality, and chemical and genetic makeup; and environmental factors, such as family life, educational attainment, economic factors, and neighborhood conditions (Siegel, 2013). There are the Biosocial Trait theories an...
Mitchell, R. (2001). Late Girlhood and End of Childhood. Tall Woman (pp. 63-65). Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Smith, Rebecca. The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Champaign, IL: U of Illinois P, 1983
The “hermeneutic activity –the practice of close reading” (373) is what Love evaluates next. The practice of close reading became the framework of hermeneutics in the early 20th century and has been the foundation of text evaluation since then, no matter what different literary approaches and cultural changes were present, since “the richness of texts continues to serve as a carrier for an allegedly superannuated humanism”(373). Her own assertion regarding the interpretation of texts can be interpreted in sev...
Sexism is an ever changing concept in today’s world. Every day the concept morphs a little bit, changing the entire definition of what is sexist and what is not. In The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare, the male characters lie to and abuse their women in order to have the women marry them. Lucentio come to Padua to study, but when he sees a beautiful girl, he pretends to be a teacher in order to marry Bianca. Petruchio on the other hand forces a woman to marry him and then trains her to follow his every command. Although the The Taming of the Shrew is frequently regarded as a particularly sexist play, it is not sexist and demeaning towards women.
On November 3 1945, the Bermuda triangle first grasped the attention of many people with one mysterious event. Flight 19, an aircraft which was out on a 3 hour training session, fully fueled and equipped with five highly experienced aviators, went missing and was never to be heard of again (McDonell1of 9). The three hour training session started from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and was due 150 miles east, 40 miles north and then was told to return to the base; unfortunately that did not happen (McDonell 1 of 9). During the training session the aviators both back up compass and compass were malfunctioning making their locations a mystery to them and lost to the world for two hours. During these two hours radios on ...